Opinion

IMAGINE THE HEADLINES if the population of Harlingen, Pflugerville, or North Richland Hills were wiped out by a natural disaster like a flood, hurricane, tornado, or by terrorist attack. Or if 18 airplanes crashed in Texas, with no survivors, every year for the last 22 years. We would all be shocked and horrified at such an incomprehensible loss of life. And yet, since Nov. 7, 2000—the last deathless day on Texas roadways—we have lost more than 79,000 lives to traffic fatalities. That is nearly equal to the population of those cities and those airplane crashes.

Panic buttons, locked doors for Texas schools Texas public schools would have to install panic buttons in classrooms and ensure all doors and windows are locked and monitored under new proposed safety standards released last week by the Texas Education Agency. The proposal is the latest effort to strengthen school safety after 19 children and two teachers were killed at Robb Elementary in Uvalde last May in the state’s deadliest school shooting.

ALL PRESIDENTS, BEGINNING WITH Washington, occasionally lied to the public, either intentionally or unintentionally. But no past President ever came close to lying to the public—to us—so blatantly, so often and so consistently as Donald Trump. He does it to inflate his wealth and his golf scores, blame others for his failures, and rewrite his personal and our national history to aggrandize himself.

OASIS…A WORD THAT WAS first given a physical definition as a fertile spot in a desert. It was the terminology used for the areas that could offer a supply of water and vegetation to craving and hopeless explorers. This early definition led to its subordinate and metaphoric definition…a pleasant area or period in the midst of a difficult or troubled situation. It’s a place that is preserved from surrounding unpleasantness; a refuge, if you will. It’s serenity amid chaos.

Early voting ends Friday; election is Tuesday, Nov. 8 Early voting for the general election ends on Friday, Nov.

VOTE NO to alcohol sales here in Canadian. The election is not to prohibit the use of alcohol—just the sale.

IN THE MIDST OF AN UGLY, divisive, and far too long, campaign season, nothing could be better for cleaning out the exhaust pipes than taking an evening walk on the Canadian River Wagon Bridge on a slightly cool fall day in October. Showing rare good sense Tuesday, I abandoned my desk, my growing heap of unwritten stories, and my old cold cup of once-delicious coffee that had grown almost as stale as my thoughts and the writing they were meant to fuel, and headed out Highway 60 to my place of respite.

Business leaders predict DACA end will cause crisis Dozens of business leaders, including several in Texas, are urging Congress to protect young immigrants who came to the U.S. as children, warning that the end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program would exacerbate workforce shortages.

THERE’S NOTHING LIKE Friday Night Lights in Texas. Where else can you see communities fill up stadiums to the tens of thousands to cheer on and encourage our youth? Anyone who has played on those fields knows how thundering stadiums of cheering fans can give you the extra motivation to succeed. Colleges from around the country recognize this system as a premier producer of athletes, and they descend on our towns to recruit year after year.

PROSPECTIVE VOTERS HERE can be described as bored and indifferent about the approaching midterm election. Local voters are not motivated. Our congressman is running unopposed. So are our county judge, state representative, and state senator. The turnout on Election Day will not be high in my village for another reason. The usual polling place, the community center on Main Street, is undergoing an extensive renovation. A chain-link fence has been erected to encircle the construction site. A sign directs voters to a temporary polling place, Ranch 277, a party venue on the highway. Unless voters are willing to drive a few more miles to the Ranch 277 building, they may not make the effort.